Contemporary cities have largely obliterated the public realm, spaces where communities can gather to express their role as citizens and interact. Daniel Canogar’s public artwork attempts to reignite public space through various means including projecting communities onto the surfaces of buildings and iconic monuments. Content is obtained via public-participation events. These events have a performative element and engage individuals in the making of the final artwork. The intention is to use new media to, metaphorically and literally, reclaim public space for the city’s inhabitants.

Canogar's lecture will discuss, among other projects, a sculptural LED screen, the largest twisted LED video sculpture in the United States; a 5,300 square foot photo-mosaic for pedestrian bridges in a new park in Madrid; and projections on the façades of buildings in Rome, Rio de Janeiro, New York City and Madrid. Challenges inherent in public art commissions will be addressed in the talk, including the difficulties of maintaining artistic integrity.

The lecture will be followed by a panel discussion with the participation of Silvia Benedito, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, Helen Marriage, Loeb Fellow'13 and co-founder of Artichoke, and Ginés Garrido, Visiting Scholar at the Harvard GSD, who has built one of the most important public spaces in recent decades in Europe. The discussion will try to identify some critical points in the ability of public art to be fixed in the memory of places and its citizens.

The event has been curated by Pablo Pérez Ramos with the support of the Design Thinking group and the Latin GSD.